RATIONALE: Evaluating specific proteins in the blood may be an effective and noninvasive procedure to help doctors determine if a patient has early non-small cell lung cancer.

PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying proteomic profiling to see how well it works in diagnosing non-small cell lung cancer in patients who are undergoing resection for suspicious (abnormal) stage I lung lesions.

Correlate the serum proteomic profile with pathologic nodal status and histopathologic features of primary lung cancer in these patients.

Correlate the initial and follow-up serum proteomic profile with overall and cancer-specific survival of these patients.

Correlate changes in the proteomic profile (preoperative to postoperative) with overall and cancer-specific survival of these patients.

Tertiary

Determine whether novel molecular strategies can predict the presence of lung cancer and/or the biologic behavior of an individual cancer in these patients.

OUTLINE: Patients undergo lung resection. Patients also undergo preoperative and postoperative collection of whole blood and serum for proteomic profiling using surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry. A lung tissue biopsy taken at surgery is also analyzed.

Patients are followed at 60-90 days and then annually for 2-5 years.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 1,000 patients will be accrued for this study within 2 years.

Eligibility

Ages Eligible for Study:

18 Years and older

Genders Eligible for Study:

Both

Accepts Healthy Volunteers:

No

Criteria

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

Clinically suspicious stage I (T1-2, N0, M0) lung lesion

No metastatic disease in the liver or adrenal glands by helical CT scan

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

18 and over

Performance status

Not specified

Life expectancy

Not specified

Hematopoietic

Not specified

Hepatic

Not specified

Renal

Not specified

Other

No malignancy within the past 5 years except effectively treated basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer, surgically treated carcinoma in situ of the cervix, or surgically treated lobular carcinoma in situ of the ipsilateral or contralateral breast AND at low risk for recurrence

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

Not specified

Chemotherapy

No prior chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

Not specified

Radiotherapy

No prior radiotherapy

Surgery

More than 30 days since other prior lung resection

Other

More than 60 days since prior blood product transfusion

Contacts and Locations

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below.
For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00077324